


Relative Stability

by facetiousfutz



Category: South Park
Genre: All Adults in South Park Suck, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Depression, Divorce, M/M, Stan's Parents Suck, Substance Abuse, Underage Drinking, Vomiting, Where's Chef When You Need Him?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-15
Updated: 2017-08-15
Packaged: 2018-12-15 20:48:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11813910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/facetiousfutz/pseuds/facetiousfutz
Summary: Stan’s a drunk, and Kyle is so done.





	Relative Stability

It was cold. Well, no shit it was cold. Colorado wasn’t exactly known for its sunny tropical weather. South Park was generally overcast and blanketed in snow. Wind howled through cracks in the window, and Stan stirred with a nose so cold it burned.

“Christ,” he grumbled. He took a peak at his digital alarm clock. The blinked in and out, 2:48--2:48--2:48--2:49. The power must have gone out again. Uncle Jimbo lived in a crappy little armpit of town, barely a step up from Kenny’s house. Uncle Jimbo didn’t care though. As long as he had a place to display his kills and hang his guns, he didn’t give a single damn. Bad plumbing? Faulty wiring? Poor insulation? Pockets of mold? Who has time for any of that? The stuffed ram head over the mantle and an ash tray in every room were all that mattered.

It was still dark. Stan tried to check his phone, but it died at some point, and he didn’t feel like getting out of bed to charge it. Instead, he pulled his pipe out of his nightstand and took a few hits of dirt. The rest of his pot was in a Crown Royal bag, top drawer of his dresser. He’d just bought an ounce from Kenny, but he didn’t want to break into it until the old dirt turned completely to ash. Stan was stingy with his pot, a force of habit, since his stupid dad was always getting into his stash without even asking.

That wasn’t why Stan moved out, though. Hell, the haze of THC was the last thread that held Randy and Sharon’s marriage together. Shelly moved out at the time. Found herself a boyfriend (who might have been a girlfriend) over the Internet and moved all the way to Blue Ball, Pennsylvania. In the context of the event, the name seemed misleading. It was weird to see her go. She still pulled his ears and called him a turd, but she was the only other person on this earth who understood what it was like to live with their parents, and she got away. Stan would have said, “take me with you!” but it came out as more of a “later, I guess” and why not? The answer would have been no anyway, so there was no point in asking.

No less than eight days had passed before Sharon, once again, declared immanent divorce. Randy was a loose cannon, a loser, a drunk, a nobody, and it was his fault that their little girl stopped taking their calls.

Stan refused to be at ground zero this time around. The radiation from the last blow burned through his veins on a daily basis. He took his pot, his whiskey, his favorite Broncos merch, a week’s worth of clothes, his wallet, his pocket knife, an unopened box of condoms, and his crappy digital alarm clock, put them all in his rolling suitcase, and got the fuck out. He left Sharon a note, urging her not to call and not to worry. He’d be living with Uncle Jimbo until he finished high school, and be damn happy he’d go to the trouble of doing that much.

So here he was, fuck o’clock in the morning, sucking on dirt, wiggling his frozen toes. It was weird. He never was one to let a little cold bother him before. He’d sacrificed a lot of comfort and convenience the day he left home. The shower head at mom’s had great heat and water pressure. She made a hot breakfast every morning and did not stink of beer and creme fraiche. Even so, he had nothing in common with his mom. He couldn’t really speak to her on a level that mattered. It was all small talk and school updates. Kyle and Butters helped him with his homework when he actually bothered to do it. He was barely passing all of his classes. His attendance sucked. He was not looking into any colleges. No, he couldn’t get a sports scholarship. It’d been five years since the last time he’d picked up a football. Uncle Jimbo pestered him about that too, but it was easy to make him stop. Stan rolled him a joint and told him to fuck off. That always worked.

Stan laid there a good hour, trying and failing to drift back into slumber. The sky was bleeding into gray. That perception was a bit goth-ish for Stan’s liking, but honestly, that’s all sunrise was in this quiet, overcast, Colorado hick town. It was no burst of light. No cheerful start to the day. He’d been to plenty of other places in the world: Denver, Ethiopia, Peru, Canada, Utah, Connecticut. They all sucked the same. Well, from a cynical douche point of view anyway. What would life be like on Marklar with Starvin’ Marvin? No parents. No school. No crazy shit every other week. No Cartman. Maybe he’d even have warm toes. It was a nice dream. He and Kyle could go together.

He got up to pee. Avoiding the sketchy toilet at all costs, Stan whipped it out at the back door and released the stream. Ned and Jimbo pissed out the back door all the time, so it was OK. Once he was done, he hooked his phone up to the charger and turned the rabbit ear television set on, punching it a few times to get a steady picture. Every other channel was infomercials. It was still too early for anything good to be on TV, and Stan didn’t have a remote, so he didn’t bother changing the channel. He watched some fast talking douchebag attempt to sell him a copper no stick skillet for like an hour or something, taking a shot of whiskey whenever he said “call now!” It was Sunday, so it was OK. Sure, Stan was only seventeen, but every seventeen year old and South Park knocked a few back every so often. It was totally fine. He could feel his toes tingling. Defrosting.

“Call in the next fifteen minutes and we’ll throw in a super special dildo you can ram up your ass. If you’re not completely satisfied, send back the copper skillet and get a full refund, but keep the dildo. It’s our gift to you!” said Stan, toasting the infomercial. This was his seventh shot. Maybe his eighth. He always lost track after three, or something. He was feeling droopy and swimmy. Wooden spoons were funny. He really wanted to take a hit of the pot he got from Kenny, but it was ten feet away, and his toes just stopped being frozen. The haze of whiskey was fine. Just fine.

“Oh, for fucks sake,” said Kyle, who opened his door without knocking. Stan didn’t even flinch. “How did I know?”

“Dude, you totally could have walked in on me jerking off,” said Stan, laughing. His cheeks were flushed, his eyes unfocused, his ninth shot already poured. Or was it his eleventh? “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“You’re fucking drunk again!” said Kyle.

“My toes were cold.”

“So wear socks to bed!”

“Nah, then I get all sweaty and-hic-itchy,” said Stan. The infomercial said “call now!” once more, so Stan downed more amber liquid without a care in the world.

“No more, Stan,” said Kyle, grabbing his wrist. “I’m cutting you off. School starts in an hour.”

“No it doesn’t, silly goose. It’s Sunday.”

“It’s Monday, Stan,” said Kyle, pinching his nose. “If you miss one more day of school, you’re gonna fucking flunk the semester.”

“Oh boo hoo. It’s not like it matters. School sucks anyway.”

“It does matter, you idiot! And if you were sober you’d agree!” Kyle yanked Stan’s comforter away, and the drunk boy screeched with dismay. “Get up and take a fucking shower.”

“You’re not the boss of me!”

“I am now. You came begging and crying to me over your grades last December. You want to graduate? Then get the fuck out of bed and take a goddamn shower. Now!”

“Only if you join me,” said Stan. He was trying to make a cute pose, but he slipped and bashed his head against the headboard. Kyle grabbed him by the wrist and forced him down the hall and into the bathroom.

“And don’t come out until you stop smelling like a goddamn bar!”

“Whoa, what’s all the yelling about?” said Jimbo, peeking his head out of his and Ned’s room.

“Stan’s drunk. Again!” said Kyle. He turned toward the bathroom door and banged on it. “Puke it out if you have to. Tick tock, Stan.”

“Yes, MOM. Whatever you say, MOM,” said Stan, the shower head going. Kyle ground his teeth and took a few slow breaths.

“That kid’s got demons,” said Jimbo. “At least he’s doing his drinking here and not in some back alley.”

“He’s seventeen. He shouldn’t be drinking at all!” Kyle insisted, but Jimbo only responded with a yawn and retreated back into his room. Typical. The adults never did anything right. The only thing they were good at was fucking everyone up more.

Take Cartman, for example. He was a spoiled piece of shit that ran his mouth constantly and caused problems for his own sick amusement. It was a miracle he didn’t get his ass kicked more often. Kyle tried not to think about Cartman too much anymore. Cartman thrived on the attention. Kyle didn’t want him thriving.

Then there was Kenny. Goddamn Kenny. He single-handedly kept his family of seven (and counting!) siblings fed and clothed by selling pot, ‘shrooms, LSD, meth, crack, cocaine, heroin, PCP, morphine, blow jobs, hand jobs, donkey punches, and occasionally Cleveland steamers. Kyle regretted Googling that last one so fucking much. Kenny also had no qualms about dressing like a super hero, a woman, a horse, a wolf, an aborted Nazi zombie fetus, or whatever fantasies his johns proposed, as long as the price was right.

Then there was fucking Butters. What a mess! He was still at large after supposedly tearing his parents limb from limb, grinding those limbs in a meat grinder, and force feeding it to them. They’ve been hospitalized since. Cartman couldn’t stop laughing about it. Couldn’t stop calling Kyle, Clyde, Jimmy, Token, Kevin Stoley, and Scott Malkinson to bark and chortle about it. In fact, Kyle strongly suspected that Cartman jerked off to every news report about it. Perhaps he was even hiding Butters in someone’s bomb shelter again just for kicks. Kyle wouldn’t be even remotely surprised if the whole thing was somehow Cartman’s doing. Butters wasn’t exactly stable, but Kyle couldn’t picture him fucking up his own parents like that. Not intentionally.

And there he goes again, getting pissed off about the injustice that is Cartman’s continued existence. Kyle couldn’t stand it.

He forced himself back to the present. Relatively speaking, Stan was the most stable in the bunch of Kyle’s closest friends, but he was still a drunk, and he was still clinically depressed and refusing treatment. He hadn’t been to see a therapist in the past four years, and refused to take the antidepressant he’d been prescribed. Said that shit made him feel like a fat zombie. He opted instead to knock back several bottles of whiskey per week. Kyle didn’t know how he was getting it. Uncle Jimbo claimed he didn’t either, but he was probably buying the shit, proud of Stan for avoiding the medicine that he actually needed. That would be Kyle’s guess, but he had no proof. This shit was killing Stan, though. He was puking violently in the shower and crying.

Kyle wanted to cry too. Is this how it would always be? Wendy warned him. Last year, when he and Stan kissed for the first time by Stark’s Pond, Wendy saw, and all she had to say was, “he’s a fucking train wreck. He’ll drag you right down with him.” She was sad, disheartened. She gave up. Nothing she could do made Stan happy. It was too much to bear.

Kyle wouldn’t give up, though. Kyle... Kyle was saving Stan. If anyone could do it, he could. He had to. He was here every weekday, dragging Stan’s inebriated ass out of bed morning after morning, getting him through school, making sure he got his homework done. He spent his entire allowance on coffee, donuts, and other stuff to clear Stan’s mind up enough to function, to help him focus. It sucked. He loved Stan. His chest hurt. His throat hurt. He fucking loved Stan. He couldn’t give up. God this fucking hurt.

“Dude, are you crying?” said Stan, stumbling out in just a towel. “Gay.”

“You’re one to talk,” said Kyle, digging at the base of his eyes. “Put some clothes on. It’s time to go.”

“Yeah yeah.”

Stan stubbed his toe on the door frame and a string of colorful language poured from him. He then wretched violently, into a trash can this time. Kyle wandered in, Stan crying and puking and crying. Then punching the floor.

“Why?” he hiccuped. “Why do I fucking suck so much?”

“You don’t suck, Stan,” said Kyle.

“Yes I do.” He wretched again. Only a string of saliva came out. “I fucking suck. I can’t do anything. I can’t even...”

“Dude, shut the hell up and get dressed,” said Kyle.

“You should... you should go, Kyle. Just give up on me, just like everyone else did. Just like my parents. Like Wendy.”

“No one’s given up on you, Stan.”

“Yes they have!” He shouted. Then he vomited.

“No, Stan,” said Kyle. “This is what happened. Your father was a drunk. Your mom couldn’t take it anymore. They got a divorce. Again. You and Shelly didn’t want to be caught in the middle. Again. So both of you left. Your uncle Jimbo is unfit to take care of you, so he enables your alcohol addiction. You’ve tried to buy heroin off of Kenny several times, but he’ll only sell you pot. You only ask Kenny because he’s the only dealer in town that’ll refuse, because he’s your friend. And you know this, on some level. He’s worried about you, dude. Wendy is, too! And so am I! You know you’re in a downward spiral and it’s fucking killing you.

“And guess what, asshole? It’s killing me too! You think I enjoy this? Watching my best friend slowly kill himself because he can’t deal with the shitty hand that life dealt him? I could be focusing a lot more on my own shit: applying for college, saving up, doing extracurricular activities, building my resume. But I’m not, because I’m too busy babysitting your ass! Tell me how that’s fair!”

“Fuck you, Kyle! Leave if I’m such a problem then!”

“No, fuck YOU, Stan! Because the last time I did, you fucking jumped off the school roof and broke your collar bone. Remember that? If you’d get some goddamn help instead of festering all the fucking time, maybe things would be a lot better! Can’t you at least TRY?”

“And then what?” said Stan. “Say I sober up. Then what? Then I get a stupid high school diploma, push carts at Wallmart, get paid shit wages that go to nothing, pretend to be happy whenever I see people, take my stupid dad’s calls, move back in with my mom, and twiddle my damn thumbs while you go off to college and find a new life out of this sick hell hole town? What’s the goddamn point, Kyle? You’re gonna leave me anyway, so why don’t you just go. Get it over with. I don’t know why you bother anymore.”

“Because you’re my best friend, you fucking dick!” said Kyle. “And it’s not too late for you, OK? When you’re sober and actually dealing with your problems, you’re the best person I know. You’re the first to notice bullshit staring you right the face. You’re the first to take action when something isn’t right. You’re always willing to do the right thing, man. That’s more than can be said for the rest of this god forsaken town.

“You’re my best friend, Stan. I love you. Please...”

“Please WHAT Kyle?” said Stan.

“GET HELP, STAN!”

“Help for what? School?”

“No! Your alcohol problem, dumbass! I’ll drive you to the fucking hospital right now.”

“I don’t have an alcohol problem!”

“Yes, you do!” Kyle pulled Stan to his feet, his inebriated friend about half a head taller. He smelt of burning whiskey, puke, and skunk weed. He’d smell worse if he hadn’t just showered, but he didn’t brush his teeth, shave, or even have a shirt on. Kyle was having a very serious conversation with his drunk and naked best friend, both of them were crying, and Ned and Jimbo were sleeping soundly though it. Incredible.

“I only drank because I thought it was Sunday. I’m not an alcoholic. I’m not like my fucking dad! I’m not!”

“Stan, come on,” said Kyle, taking Stan’s hand. “You’re right. You’re not like your dad. He was a stupid, selfish prick and he put his own bullshit before his family. I’ve seen it happen many times, man. Maybe you think I didn’t notice, but I did. I also happened to pay attention in Health class. This shit’s hereditary, dude. If you don’t put a stop to it now, you’re going end up just like him.”

“No, I won’t!” said Stan, yanking his hand away. “I promise I won’t! Just... here.”

He picked up his whiskey bottle and shoved it into Kyle’s arms.

“Fucking dump it. Hurry up.”

“Stan...”

“Just dump it if it bothers you so much! I’m tired of talking about it.”

He was going to get mad. He was going to get more. This was going to happen again. And again. And again. Kyle and Stan had a cycle going. Sometimes this was part of it. Kyle went to the bathroom and he did dump it. Something had to give, though. He could not allow this to go on.

The two of them got into Kyle’s car once Stan was dressed. They pulled over twice so Stan could dry heave. Then they got close to the school, but Stan noticed Kyle wasn’t slowing down.

“Dude, the school’s right there!”

“We’re not going to school, dumbass.”

“No, dude. We have to. I can’t miss anymore classes. I can’t!”

“You can write an appeal, finish up in summer school, or you can get your GED. Right now, though, going to school is a waste of time.”

“What are you saying?”

“We’re going to hospital, Stan. You drink too fucking much and you're suicidal. You’re getting help.”

“I don't need help!”

“Then I’m fucking DONE!" said Kyle, tires screeching around the curb. "You either get help NOW, or you’re on your own. I refuse to enable you anymore!”

Kyle pulled into the parking lot of the emergency room. Stan wretched once more on the sidewalk. Once he was done, he complained ceaselessly about how pointless and stupid this was. How Kyle was overreacting. How they'd be told to turn around and sleep it off. Stan yelled “FUCK THIS!” and “FUCK YOU!” the closer they got to the door, but he followed, his hand sweating bullets in Kyle’s, but firmly in place nonetheless. For that, Kyle’s heart felt just a little bit lighter. Maybe there was hope.

Maybe.

God he fucking hoped so.

The End


End file.
